While Marathon, being a mid-90's 2.5D shooter, lacks the detail of modern FPS games, its texture and map authors (and those of similar games such as Doom) have nonetheless managed to create enthralling, if abstract, environments at the time. Which places in the Trilogy do you like best, visually / design wise?

Personal favorites of mine are the central atrium in the net map Duality and the cathedral entryways in Ex Cathedra.

I always liked the lava chambers in Six Thousand Feet Under from M2. The narrow ledges flanking the lava pools make for some fun vertical combat.

I remember the upper passages on A Converted Church in Venice, Italy being impressive when I first saw them -- how you first encounter them outside in the courtyard, then make your way up through the narrow corridors. In terms of architecture, Aye Mak Sicur is an obvious winner for overall use of the map grid and resources in the engine.

I remember liking the temple and open courtyards of Nuke and Pave (I think that's the one, at least), and the eerie, abandoned layouts of Kill Your Television and Beware of Abandoned Rental Trucks ('eerie and abandoned' being a good way to describe 90% of M2, but it feels especially pronounced in those two levels).

Not much to admire in M1...too mazy and PiD-like. I agree that Converted Church and Aye Mak Sicur are probably the best designed levels in the trilogy. But for architecture I gotta give love to The Hard Stuff Rules. Even though a lot of it is empty space, I really appreciate how the level designer matched the terminal pictures of the old S'pht citadel with its three branching areas. And any map that has that big of a clusterfuck of overlaps it's admirable. Also the fifth level in M2 (I think its Come and Take Your Medicine) is really awesome. You can finish that level in like ten seconds, but there is so much to explore, it really feels like a legit base.

doctorbenjiphd wrote:Also the fifth level in M2 (I think its Come and Take Your Medicine) is really awesome. You can finish that level in like ten seconds, but there is so much to explore, it really feels like a legit base.

Exploring that map fully for the first time feels like a real adventure, like forbidden territory.